A Story to Tell Your Friends
by munchkinjenny05
Summary: AU-It sounds fun to be 17 and beautiful forever, doesn't it? Don't believe the hype. Quinn isn't sold on the idea. The truth is ugly and it certainly doesn't glitter. She tells her tale of vampire life to someone willing to listen...


**I'm sure that the premise of this is nothing new, it's just a bit of fun really, to pass the time and get the creative juices flowing.**

**Mostly I wanted to combine my love of all things Quinn Fabray with my love of Vampires. They get a bad rap these days thanks to the douchebaggery of Edward Cullen, but as much as I hate the whole Twilight franchise my fascination with vampires came before and will exist long after. **

**I guess I was sort of channelling the **_**"Interview with a Vampire"**_** concept of telling the story of how she was made. I'll leave you to imagine the identity of the victim and what befell them afterwards.**

Forget everything you have read, watched or heard about vampires. Real vampires aren't romantic; there is nothing beautifully poetic about their wretched existence. They don't want your love or even sex and they certainly don't sparkle. Crosses and garlic don't work. Picture a junkie in the throes of addiction and multiply it by a million or two, that's what you get. They are ruthless, brutal, barbaric and relentless in their desperation. I should know. I am a real life blood sucking vampire.

I guess I should tell you how I came to be, if only so as you are able to take it as a warning. Don't waste your pity though, this fable is for my own good as much as yours, I need you, you see, exactly as you are. Whereas, I need extra vampires like I need a hole in the head. Why swell the ranks, there are enough of us creatures of the night already, more than I care to contend with if I'm honest. I can assure you as well, that they are not all as genial as I.

Anyway, I digress. It was a dark and stormy night, clichéd but true. You have my word that all of this is total fact as I remember it, 100%, nothing added or taken away. There would be no point in lying or embellishing to increase the dramatic tension. I am not _Stephenie Meyer_ or _Charlaine Harris _and I'm not trying to sell books to pre-adolescents. This is my life. If you haven't got the stomach for it, go now, I won't stop you. Choosing to stay, huh? Fancy yourself as a brave girl do you? Well, okay, you asked for it.

I was 17 years old when it happened, the transformation. Before that I was just a normal teenage girl living the American dream, a pretty blonde cheerleader with an attractive jock boyfriend who happily ruled over her sheltered small town world. My popularity meant that I was a shoe in for all the desired accolades including Prom Queen, I had the world at my feet and beyond that my sights set firmly on a dazzling future at Yale. I had no doubt I would get in, I probably still could, if daytime classes weren't such a problem. In short, my life was pretty damn perfect, and isn't that always the kicker. The downfall never happens to the losers or nobody's, so I was a prime target for devastation.

My world crumbled the evening I decided to go to the city for a gig. It was actually my best friend Santana's idea, her favourite band was playing some secret show and she was desperate to go from the moment she heard. She organised it all, I just showed up, like a lamb to the slaughter. Sadly, the music wasn't even worth it. The band was generic and boring, all thrashing guitars and gravelly cigar smoke vocals. There was no heart to the performance, so I ducked out early. Big mistake. If I could change it all, I would hang on with gritted teeth until the end of the set and go dancing ahead of stumbling home a little drunk like we had originally planned, but I can't. My musical snobbery sealed my fate.

He was there, my soon to be maker, loitering against the brick with an air of total indifference that intrigued me. He looked as bored as I felt and he didn't try and mask it. I was pulled in, sick of the falseness of my generation. He rose above it; I could see into him and recognise that, I don't know how, but it radiated off him and spoke to my soul like the sweetest poetry. I was enthralled. He looked like James Dean in the rain and his apathy touched my heart. Sickeningly, I had romantic notions I realise now. I foolishly thought I could alter him, break through, and show him how to feel. It would be an epic love story to rival any standard boy meets girl drivel and I was the heroine. Pathetic, huh? Maybe just for that naivety alone I deserved what happened next.

Everything occurred so fast, it couldn't have been more than a minute after I approached and yet as I recall it, at this moment, the seconds seem to stretch out with agonising slowness. I don't think I need to go into details, you've all seen the scenario played out a hundred times, right? Although, in actual fact, maybe I should because this was different to the Hollywood version, he didn't just caress my neck and give me the hickey to end all hickeys. It wasn't as tame as that. He was rampant and uncontrolled. I didn't even know his name, but nonetheless I let him pin me to the wall. Alarm bells should have been ringing, but I felt disconnected, as though this was happening to somebody else. I didn't feel anything. I was aware of a crushing weight that held me in place, like a large stone sitting on my chest, and knew I was unable to move, however I felt no pain or fear. I was numb. I was immediately reminded of the drowsiness I felt when I accidentally mixed antibiotics and sleeping tablets, but amplified. I was floating, safe and untouchable, far away, soaring above. Basically, I was in a bubble, drugged by his mental prowess and nothing mattered.

Only when the stranger began hitching up my skirt, his hands and mouth finding the sensitive flesh of my thigh, did I finally experience something. I cried out, but instead of searing pain or terror, it was euphoria that I felt, sheer bliss. My moan was that of ecstasy. It took me a while to decode those conflicting emotions but I fully comprehend the idea now, that my emotional state was tethered to his but at the same time, it was heightened. It is the same for my victims when I feed. Their hearts race with mine and as I am fulfilled, the flow of my satisfaction washes over them. Their reaction is always vastly superior to mine and I envy them that. I've had people crying out as if in orgasm thanks to one touch of my lips, whereas I note only the level of pleasure that you might get from a glass of water on a warm day. That is the best it ever gets, the climax of any sensations I might undergo.

It's important for me to tell you that they don't ever feel pain unless I chose to let them, and I never do, although it is true of some of us. Some vampires are sadist and relish the notion of inflicting injury, it's part of the thrill for them, but I'm not a monster. There is no reason why you should suffer for me; it is a transaction, no more. I take what I need to survive and move on. I don't kill. Of course, in the early days when my thirst seemed unquenchable, there were accidents but I am never a willing taker of life, only blood. I might weaken you, maybe you will feel tired for a few days as you replenish what I've stolen, but it is no worse than a bout of anaemia. Eat a juicy steak and get some rest and you will be fine. No harm no foul. I was not so lucky.

It wasn't enough for him to have a taste, he drained me. I crumpled to the ground, my lifeless body slumped in the moonlight puddles of the dimly lit alleyway. I imagine that I resembled a forgotten rag doll. I don't know what provoked him to turn me, it can't have been inspired by love or loneliness or any of those notions because I haven't seen him since. I used to look out for him but he is never there. He certainly isn't lurking in the background like a father figure, watching over my progress and bursting with pride. I am not his beloved protégé. I don't know what I meant to him, most likely nothing. Maybe I was a mild amusement, allowing him to pass the time by watching me begin to transform. It is useless to wonder.

Whatever his motivations, he fed me from him and as I weakly lapped at his vein like a newborn kitten I was cursed to become this. Would it have been better for me to simply die there in the city dust? I don't know. At least my torment would be over. I am doomed to everlasting life now, and there is nothing glamorous about that. I didn't drink from the fountain of youth or take a magic pill to halt aging, I died. My organs shut down and I stopped breathing. I emerged as a new vampire covered in the blood and shit and piss of death. I am a corpse. It isn't beautiful. All that separates me from the revulsion of zombies is a lack of rot. Furthermore, my eternal youth and unchanging looks are a curse that forced me to sever the ties of my old life. A 17 year old girl who never ages, drinks blood and sleeps all day would have attracted attention in Lima, Ohio. People gossiped if you were 10 minutes late for church. They would have had a field day over me. Therefore, I am isolated. A teenager for all time, without family or friends or that glittering future I dreamed of. I can never fall in love, get married, and have kids or grandkids. The night and feeding are all that there is available for me.

At first, when I awoke, I tried to kid myself. I assumed that I had been raped and dumped, and that my body had responded by going into shock. It seemed logical, more so than the alternative. The thirst hadn't come yet, so new was I, and thus, I just dusted myself off and went back inside. I cleaned myself up with surprising ease in the harsh florescent lights of the bathroom in the club. The bite was in a discrete enough area of my body to hide so I ignored it. I didn't even have to look at it as I mopped up the blood with paper towels. I told myself I could forget. I let myself believe, for that evening, that everything would be okay.

We did go dancing; Santana and I, and I danced harder and with more vigorous abandon than ever. I couldn't stop; I had so much energy that I was bouncing off the walls. Santana thought that somebody had slipped me a pill. I didn't contradict her. It was indescribable, the feelings, the sights, the smells. It was as if the air was vibrating around me. You'll never know unless it happens to you but if it ever does you'll realise too late how bittersweet it is. The atmosphere is a false friend and you are doomed. It only all feels so good because you are experiencing these things for the last time so the sensations can never be matched.

Somebody passed me a tequila shot and I downed it absently. It wasn't a wise move. If you think that the liquor burns your human throat, you've got nothing on me; it was like drinking gasoline and then chasing it with a lit match. I raced to the toilet and promptly spewed congealed blood all over the cubicle. It was the colour and consistency of tar and made me recoil. I didn't let another thing pass my lips all night, not even water; I dared not, despite my best friend's urging. I stopped dancing too. I felt dizzy. All my bravado had been stripped away. What I had witnessed in that toilet bowl was a firm goodbye to normality, life as I knew it had been flushed down the drain. Is it any wonder that I didn't feel much like celebrating?

As I fell into the trappings of my new routine over the next few days, people noticed. I wasn't going to school and I was locking myself in my room all day with the blinds drawn, hardly subtle. When I emerged at night I was restless and snappy and I couldn't sit still. My parents tried to talk to me but I had nothing to say. The truth of my nightmare was laughable, a parody almost. When they presumed drugs I let them. It was a safe bet and I was an addict really, wasn't I? Just not for the pharmaceuticals they were picturing. Next door's cat was my first victim, if you are ever unlucky enough to be in the same boat I definitely don't recommend feline sustenance except in the most dire of emergencies, which is how I came upon it. The blood was disgusting, but as wretched as I was, my self-preservation instincts were strong. They still are, in spite of everything, and that's why I'm here and telling this tale.

In any case, my parents did what they had always done in unsavoury situations; they kept the shame firmly locked behind closed doors and threw money at the problem until it went away. Rehab was their solution. I was happy with it for a while, I had a steady stream of donors and I was careful, not that anyone looked to hard at the behaviour of addicts and delinquents. Cutters were the best targets as they already had marks that they wanted to hide. I made the best of the hand I was dealt, but unfortunately like all good things, it couldn't last. People began to ask questions, the lies were getting more complicated and my parents couldn't let go of the idea that I would soon be able to breeze back home as if nothing had ever happened. They didn't know that there was no cure for my disease.

So, I cut my losses and ran. After a while people stopped looking. The number of runaways only increases every day. I was just another statistic. Funnily enough I had made it to the bright lights New York after all. Even though it wasn't how I had dreamt of starting a new life, being anonymous did have its compensations. I was without rules or parental expectations and I could do as I pleased. Total freedom is a phrase used too readily, but in my case, it was true. Wait, don't let me fool you, I fear that I'm painting the picture too rosy. Of course, it wasn't all doom and gloom as I said, but it was far from a utopia either. I had to live like a vagrant, under the radar. There was no swanky modern apartment for this girl. I stole, I conned and I got by, that's all. You don't need much mercifully when you don't feel chilled by the winter air or aren't a slave to hunger pangs. Thirst, the only thing I did have to contend with, wasn't a problem. The population is numerous and the streets are like my very own delicatessen, an all you can eat buffet.

In those early days I slept underground, deep in whatever unmolested earth I could find within the concrete jungle. That was before I made my home in the derelict building where I now reside. Forgive me if I don't share the address, I don't do well with house guests. After all this time it seems to me that I still feel the grainy soil beneath my fingers. It must be a trick of my mind, because no matter how expertly I wash my hands, it remains there under my unrelenting gaze. I'm like a caricature of Lady Macbeth, crazed by the phantom dirt but I swear it taunts me. I feel the grime permeating through my pores, and when my tongue isn't flooded with the delight of rich, coppery blood I can taste it there still. My nail beds are thick and discoloured with it. Can you see? I fail to understand why _Dracula_ was such a fan. I much prefer my current dwelling, I'd made it quite homely and the rats are ideal in a pinch. It's a meagre existence but I've carved it out as best I can.

We don't have much time; the sun is going to be up soon, so ends my tale. I do hope it made a good bedtime story for you. I'd hate to disappoint such a keen audience. It's so rare that I have someone to converse with, it's nice. Hey, I have an idea. Before I go, how about a game?

Do you want to play? Okay then. When you are ready, have a guess how long it's been. That's right; tell me how old you think I really am? Come on, try it. Don't be a spoil sport. Go ahead, it'll be fun; I promise I won't bite…


End file.
